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Arizona Diamondbacks Chapter 1: Great Expectations 1998-2002

Pitcher Randy Johnson: Business owner, photographer and serves as a Diamondbacks’ special assistant to the President and CEO. David Kadlubowski/azcentral.com, David Kadlubowski/azcentral.com

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks: Where are they now?

Pitcher Randy Johnson: Business owner, photographer and serves as a Diamondbacks’ special assistant to the President and CEO.
David Kadlubowski/azcentral.com, David Kadlubowski/azcentral.com

DIGITAL -- 26158 -- DBACKS/ASTROS
Reliever Mike Morgan: Resides in Ogden, Utah, where he owns World Championship Outfitters, a company that takes people on private hunts with Morgan as the guide. PAUL F. GERO, AZR-D

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks: Where are they now?

DIGITAL -- 26158 -- DBACKS/ASTROS
Reliever Mike Morgan: Resides in Ogden, Utah, where he owns World Championship Outfitters, a company that takes people on private hunts with Morgan as the guide.
PAUL F. GERO, AZR-D

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks: Where are they now?

Outfielder Erubiel Durazo: Is the Diamondbacks’ special adviser on Mexico to the President and CEO. La Voz

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks: Where are they now?

Outfielder Erubiel Durazo: Is the Diamondbacks’ special adviser on Mexico to the President and CEO.
La Voz

Outfielder David Dellucci: Has been working as a color commentator in the Louisiana area for Sports South, ESPN3, Atlantic Sun TV and CST and also serves on the advisory board for National Wildlife Federation’s Vanishing Paradise. Pat shannahan, AZR

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks: Where are they now?

Outfielder David Dellucci: Has been working as a color commentator in the Louisiana area for Sports South, ESPN3, Atlantic Sun TV and CST and also serves on the advisory board for National Wildlife Federation’s Vanishing Paradise.
Pat shannahan, AZR

Infielder Craig Counsell: In his fourth season as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. Kim Klement, Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks: Where are they now?

Infielder Craig Counsell: In his fourth season as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Kim Klement, Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

When the first pitch is thrown on Thursday night, the Diamondbacks will have begun their third decade of major-league games. We offer up four chapters dividing those two decades. This is Chapter One.

Three years after being granted an expansion franchise by Major League Baseball and its owners – a monumental task for Jerry Colangelo and his partnership group that at times turned contentious during meetings in West Palm Beach, Fla. – the Diamondbacks were ready for their inaugural season in Arizona.

Single-game tickets for Opening Day went on sale on Jan. 10, 1998, and within a matter of hours, their first game at Bank One Ballpark was sold out. That game, March 31 against the Colorado Rockies, drew a standing-room-only crowd of 50,179 and although the Diamondbacks lost 9-2, baseball in the Valley was an instant success, even if it didn’t reflect in the standings at the end of that first year.

With everyone on their feet hooting and hollering, the first pitch from Diamondbacks starting pitcher Andy Benes was a fastball for a called strike. The Arizona Republic commemorated the moment with a special T-shirt that was available in certain stores all across the state.

First baseman Travis Lee collected the first hit in franchise history – a first-inning single – and he also connected for the Diamondbacks’ first home run in his second plate appearance. With that, Lee also became the first Diamondbacks player in history to score a run and record an RBI.

The team got its first win April 4 with a 3-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants. The wins would be tough to come by that first season, which was to be expected from an expansion team. Arizona finished last in the NL West with a 65-97 record.

The Diamondbacks weren’t without their share of highlights in 1998, of course:

On July 30, Omar Daal pitched the franchise’s first shutout – a 4-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Bank One Ballpark in which he allowed just four hits.

On Sept. 4, the Diamondbacks defeated the Houston Astros 3-1 for their seventh consecutive victory, tying the record for the longest winning streak by any expansion team.

On Sept. 13, Benes came within two outs of throwing a no-hitter during a 5-0 victory at Cincinnati. It was a fantastic month for Benes, who went 3-0 with a 0.47 ERA and ended the season with a scoreless streak of 27 1/3 innings.

Those and other moments stood out the most, but the biggest and brightest highlights in franchise history would come soon enough.

Party like it's ...

Randy Johnson throws the first pitch of the first game of the 1999 playoffs against the New York Mets.(Photo: PETER SCHWEPKER, AZR-D )

In only their second year of existence, 1999, the Diamondbacks won 100 games and reached the playoffs more quickly than any expansion team. They won the division title by a very comfortable, 14-game margin and were looked at as a real contender to win the World Series that year.

Colangelo and his lieutenants, after all, managed to pull off the unimaginable by signing superstar pitcher Randy Johnson to a multi-year, free-agent deal. Years earlier, Johnson had told The Republic that some day, Arizona was going to get itself an MLB franchise and, since he lived in the Valley during the offseason, he could envision himself playing for the franchise once it arrived.

He kept his word thanks to some persistence from Colangelo, and the Big Unit, after leading the majors in strikeouts, innings pitched and complete games that season, earned the second Cy Young Award of his career – the first major individual trophy in Diamondbacks history.

Johnson wasn’t the only major factor in Arizona’s mega turnaround in Year 2. The team also found a savior and fellow fan favorite with the acquisition of outfielder Luis Gonzalez, who helped establish a culture of winning with his 37-game hitting streak during the first half of the season.

These Diamondbacks quickly became the team to watch and perhaps never was that more evident than during a three-day spell in the middle of May when they beat the Montreal Expos on three straight walk-off home runs – the first by second baseman Jay Bell, the second by Gonzalez and the third by third baseman Matt Williams.

Other highlights in 1999 included:

The first no-hitter at Bank One Ballpark. It happened on June 25 as Jose Jimenez of the Cardinals out-dueled Johnson 1-0.

Closer Matt Mantei is acquired from the Marlins on July 9 for pitchers Vladimir Nunez, Brad Penny and a player to be named later.

Bell’s grand slam in the sixth inning on July 11 at the BOB wins $1 million for lucky fan Gylene Hoyle of Chandler, who predicted the player and the inning before the game as part of the Shamrock Farms Grand Slam Sundae promotion. “The highlight of my career,” Bell said later.

Bell joined Johnson, Gonzalez and Williams as All-Star representatives that season. No other team had more than the Diamondbacks’ four.

Facing the New York Mets in the NL Division Series, the Diamondbacks dropped their first postseason game 8-4 thanks to Edgardo Alfonzo’s ninth-inning grand slam, his second homer of the game. Arizona rallied in Game 2, winning 7-1 with Todd Stottlemyre offering a stellar pitching performance and scattering just four hits.

The season ended, however, on Oct. 9 when Todd Pratt homered in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Mets a 4-3 victory in Game 4 in New York.

Johnson wasn’t the only Diamondbacks player to win a major individual honor. Center fielder Steve Finley earned a Rawlings Gold Glove Award for his brilliant efforts in 1999.

Too grand

Speaking of brilliant, no pitcher might have ever been so dominant as Johnson was to open the 2000 season. The big left-hander had an absolutely epic April, going 6-0 with a 0.91 ERA during a run that saw him post three complete games and a pair of shutouts.

Johnson, who won his second straight Cy Young Award, recorded the 3,000th strikeout of his career on Sept. 10 in Miami.

This was the year the Diamondbacks acquired pitcher Curt Schilling, obtaining him in a midseason trade from the Philadelphia Phillies. Although Schilling didn’t set the baseball world on fire this particular season, his arrival reshaped the course of Diamondbacks’ history in the very near future.

Overall, the 2000 season wasn’t much to shout about – other than Johnson’s heroics. There were some other highlights, though, including:

A 24-game hitting streak by Tony Womack, which tied for the longest in the National league that year.

With Mark McGwire at the plate, the Diamondbacks turn the first triple play in club history during the fifth inning of their May 31 game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

On July 5, Gonzalez becomes the first Diamondbacks player in history to hit for the cycle when he homers in the ninth inning at Houston.

The season ends with a disappointing 85-77 record and manager Buck Showalter is fired and replaced with Bob Brenly, who had been serving as the team’s television color analyst.

Randy Johnson (pictured with Jerry Colangelo in 2001) won four Cy Youngs in a row while with the Diamondbacks.(Photo: NICK DE LA TORRE, AZR-D)

Title town

All the big-money moves and bold strikes by Colangelo and the front office pay off in the wonderfully magical 2001 season in which the Diamondbacks become the youngest expansion franchise to win the World Series.

They do it in just their fourth year of existence and it comes in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as they defeat the celebrated New York Yankees, four games to three in one of the most wildly thrilling World Series of all time.

Game 7 goes down as perhaps the most exciting finish in the history of the Fall Classic, with the Diamondbacks battling back from a 2-1 deficit and having to face the great Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning. It started with a leadoff base hit up the middle by Mark Grace and ended with a game-winning bloop single over the head of the shortstop by Gonzalez.

As estimated crowd of 300,000 celebrated in downtown Phoenix at the Diamondbacks’ victory parade on Nov. 7. During the parade, Arizona’s World Series trophy is damaged, but it would later by repaired and the party would continue on and on and on.

Thanks to Johnson and a healthy Schilling for a full season, the Diamondbacks boasted the most powerful 1-2 pitching punch in baseball that season. The dynamic duo owned the National League, finishing 1-2 in virtually every major pitching statistic.

Arizona won the division by two games over the Giants, finishing 92-70.

Johnson collected his third consecutive Cy Young Award. Schilling was second in the balloting. Each, however, shared World Series Most Valuable Player honors.

Gonzalez, meanwhile, had a career year with a stunning 57 home runs and 142 RBIs. He began the year by slugging 13 homers in the month of April, tying Ken Griffey Jr. for the most in major league history for that particular month.

Other highlights:

Johnson ties the major league record for strikeouts in nine innings when he fans 20 at Bank One Ballpark on May 8 against the Cincinnati Reds.

The Diamondbacks down the Giants 1-0 in an 18-inning marathon at San Francisco on May 19.

On Sept. 5, Schilling becomes the Diamondbacks’ first pitcher to win 20 games.

The D-Backs were swept by the Cardinals in the 2002 NLDS in spite of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling (pictured) finishing 1 and 2 in the NL Cy Young Award voting for the second straight year.(Photo: Dave Cruz/The Arizona Republic, AZR)

Repeat denied

The winning continued in 2002 as Arizona won its third division championship in four years, finishing 98-64 before getting swept in the NLDS by the Cardinals. The expectations, of course, were that the Diamondbacks would repeat as World Series champions but it wasn’t to be.

It was still another highly productive season, however, filled with grand achievements as a raging fan base grew bigger and louder around the state. The year started off on a high note when the team received its World Series championship rings on April 2.

The team didn’t forget its fans, either, giving away thousands upon thousands of replica rings, which felt as heavy as the real thing.

The real story of the season was Johnson and Schilling, who were dominant once again. They carried the team on their shoulders with a little help from every corner of the clubhouse. But it was the two aces that led the charge.

Here’s just a sampling of some of their shining moments:

On April 7, Schilling struck out 17 Brewers while tossing a one-hitter in Milwaukee. Later in the month, Johnson won his sixth straight start to become the first pitcher ever to win six games prior to May 1 in two different seasons.

Schilling improved to 10-1 when he beat the Giants on May 29. On July 27, he held the Padres to one run in eight innings to go 5-0 for the month with a 1.64 ERA. Schilling picked up his 20th win on Aug. 16 when he struck out 12 Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Johnson, meanwhile, struck out 14 Marlins on Aug. 10 to move past Tom Seaver and into fifth place on the all-time strikeout list. On Aug. 4, he tosses a three-hitter to move past Bert Blyleven and into fourth place on that list. The win marked Johnson’s 20th of the season, making Johnson and Schilling just the sixth pair of teammates since 1950 to win 20 games in back-to-back seasons.

Johnson capped the year by winning his fourth consecutive Cy Young Award and with it, capturing the Triple Crown by leading the NL in wins (24), ERA (2.32) and strikeouts (334). He and Schilling (316) became the first teammates to record 300 or more strikeouts in the same season.

One of the funnier moments of the season occurred on Sept. 2 during a 19-1 loss to the Dodgers – the Diamondbacks’ worst defeat ever. In that game, Grace pitched the ninth inning and did his famous Mike Fetters impersonation by quickly craning his neck and glaring toward home plate with a grimacing scowl.